Image Source: Sorry couldn’t resist… 🙂
Post-publication clarifications: I ended up getting a few facts wrong (eg: cRPG vs MMORPG) and making erroneous assumptions in the post and the comments (eg: ‘Jake’s’ age). For that I humbly apologize to Ve4grm. However, I think that, as written, the post remains an interesting case study.
In Yesterday’s post where I asked why you DMed, Ve4grm shared that he’s had some ‘why don’t I just play World of Warcraft instead’ moments lately.
He explained that his current gaming group is storming, mostly because of one player’s behavior. We’ve exchanged a few comments and I asked him if I could post the story and my thoughts here instead. He gracefully agreed and I thank him for it.
Now a few Caveats:
- What will follow will be my personal assessment of the situation and my opinions on it based on my own experience and not any sort of ‘truth’ or ‘good way to play’.
- My credentials (if you can call them that): 24 years as a DM, a few years of experience as a manager and more than 25 years of Tabletop and workplace politics.
- I invite every reader to chime in with their 2 cents, but I respectfully ask not to send any negative remarks towards Ve4 and his players. (My opinions, on the other hand, are fair game as I chose to make my musings public).
The Group:
Here’s Ve4’s D&D gaming group, all good friends (and more) of his for more than 4 years now. I’ll add fake names to make it simpler (also check here for definitions of their gaming styles):
- Jill: Storyteller, easy to please but likes as much role playing as she can get.
- Gwen: Casual gamer and the DM’s fiancé.
- Jake: Powergaming tactician and Gwen’s brother (i.e. DM’s quasi-Brother-in-law).
- Will: Casual Butt Kicker, dating Jill.
- Stan: Casual Butt Kicker.
The situation:
Jake seems to like killing stuff and looting. He’s rather new to tabletop RPGs, but a long time MMORPG player. Whenever he’s not fighting or looting, he tends to disrupts the table and fiddles with a laptop to surf the net and do homework.
Also, Jake seems to dislike having his character at less than full resources and requests more frequent party rest stops than what the system expects. He also gets really vocal when he’s subjected to ability damage attack and Drains (i.e. attacks that lowers your main ability scores like poison and blood drain). I assume that the same would apply for level drains. Jake’s dislike is such that he openly calls the game unfun when this occurs.
The DM takes this this pretty personally (as we DMs are known to do) and is experiencing the onset of DM burnout very soon after a 2 month summer hiatus.
The Assessment:
This is a typical example of a Storming group. It would be sooooo easy to say ‘Dude, kick him out’ but this would not be helpful nor take into account the social realities of this group.
As I see it, the storming revolves around a few things:
- Jake’s behavior and playing preferences.
- Jill’s natural style that clashes with Jake’s.
- The DM’s emotional involvement in the situation.
- The DM’s close relationship with Jake (‘Brother-in-Law’).
This gaming group is very inter-related as it mixes friendship, affective relationships (2 couples) and family (brother-sister). It makes the situation more delicate to deal with.
My reading of the situation is that Jake is the impatient type and exhibits signs of selfishness. The thing that stands out the most is Jake’s fiddling with a laptop for non-game reasons. This is disruptive at best and rude at worst. It clearly signals that he doesn’t really care about what happens when the game veers away from his natural style.
Something should be done about that. A ‘no laptop’ policy should be considered.
I think the DM should sit down one on one with Jake (away from Gwen to avoid a perceived 2 on 1) and discuss this with a healthy flexing of the DM’s assertive muscle:
- Address the impact of Jake’s behavior on the DM’s and Jill’s fun factor. No accusations are to be made, nor finger pointing, just laying out the facts (talking to Jill and the others to get her take before would be a good idea).
- Make it clear that the game survival is threatened at this point.
- If Jake becomes defensive or aggressive, use the broken record technique like ‘I understand, but WE as a group are not having fun here Jake’ or ‘but D&D is a group thing and we’re different from you man!’ until he simmers down.
- Do the Rubber Ducky test (‘if it looks, and sounds like a Rubber ducky, it is one‘) with him: Ask him what would be the absolute best perfect D&D evening for him. Listen to him, without saying anything, until he’s done.
- Take notes and review the list with him so you show him you want to understand him. (i.e. don’t get defensive or argue, your working him in your camp here)
- Ask him if doing a game like that would be fun for the others. (Chances are, it won’t, but there could be surprises). You’ll see if he’s hopelessly selfish here.
- If you get there, get Jake to propose a compromise on behavior and playing styles he’d be comfortable with (basically have Jake propose key aspects of a Social Contract). It should address the laptop issue.
- Promise to talk about it later after you both have had time to think it over.
Jake seems to be a good friend of the DM, a discussion like the one above should help resolve the issue. Or maybe show that Jake can’t fit with the rest of the group. If such is the case, and since the guy is basically family, putting the game on hiatus and letting Gwen take over as DM might be a better solution than taking more drastic measures that will leave scars. Since Gwen is Jake’s brother, she might be able to deal with him while Ve4 recuperates.
As for the DM, he needs to differentiate between the player’s sense of fun and his worth as a DM. He needs to see that any Storming in his group involves him, at least to some degree. A bit of constructive introspection is healthy. It’s not a case of guilt or bad DMing, far from it, but Storming is a group thing and is resolved as a group by agreeing to common rules and sharing expactations.
The rest of the group have natural styles that are rather compatible with each other. Also, the large number of casual players/butt kickers make it easier to design adventures as the DM can focus on the Tactician and Storyteller while sprinkling fights and obstacles to please the majority.
Involving the players in developing the plot and next adventures can do wonders. Ve4’s group seems perfect for the 5-room dungeon approach. Such an adventure fits in single session and can be so easily tailored to a group with various tastes.
Crunch Corner:
Finally, for ability drains and such, in my opinion, Jake has a point. While I would never rest if I went from 24 STR to 20 (24? Really? Power Gaming indeed!) having a cleric unable to cast spells is grounds to rest, no issue. Ability drains are part of D&D and I accept them, but they are unfun when the party lacks the tools to alleviate them and must face tougher challenges ahead. I would propose the following ‘fixes’
- Upping the number of Lesser Restoration potions and Restoration scrolls above and beyond the standard treasure allotment
- If the game is low on Bling, make ability damage fade on an hourly basis instead of a daily basis or subjected to lesser restoration effects by Heal checks.
- Level drains fade automatically after 24 hours.
- Weave ability and level drain encounters into the Boss Fights (or climatic conflicts) or right before a natural resting point in the story. The draining effect become a challenge in the current fight, as they should be, but do not affect other encounters as badly.
My Chatty 2 cents. Feel free to comment where you agree and disagree.
Just as a clarification on a couple of points.
The laptop – “Jake” will occasionally say that he’s quite busy with take-home work, and while he can make it, he’ll need to do work while here. That’s fine by me, as I’m in university for engineering, and I know how much work can pile up. But once he’s here, he seems to do none of that work, just sitting on the net or playing games. (Though I don’t always see his screen, so he may be doing the work as well.)
So a “no laptop” policy might be difficult to implement, and might result in the loss of him as a player on some weekends.
The 24 Str is a result of us being level 9 (2 points of stat boost), him being a Mul Barbarian in a Dark Sun game (+4 Str), and some magic gear.
And for ability drain, they did rest right after that battle. Well, after making a run for it out of the area, at least (it was meant as a difficult area, to teach the newbies (there are 3 of them) that fighting everything isn’t always going to be the best choice). They had a good chance to rest, in fact, as they were heading right back to town, where they could buy a lesser restoration from a cleric in order to quickly get our cleric back to the point where she could heal everyone herself.
– Bling is decently common, about on par with other games, tough I will up the lesser restoration potions.
– Level drain fading: good thought, will, be considered. I dislike negative levels as well.
– Weave drains right before boss fights: the situation discussed was just such a fight. I don’t do these things all through a day, in any case, but some interesting monsters happen to have ability damage. While it’s not my normal tactic, I won’t avoid using it, though I will avoid using large Wis drains outside of boss fights (1 point, not a big deal, 1d6 could be a bad idea).
But I think the epiphany of the article was the 5-room dungeon.
If you remember, I said that one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever ran came 2 sessions ago? Well, that followed the tenets of the 5-room dungeon, albeit with a different progression (Rooms 1, 5, 3 and 4 simultaneously, and then 2).
I need to do more of that.
As another thought…
I tend to run shorter campaigns, as I personally need to see change in what I DM every so often. This campaign has been going on for almost a year. This is the first real long-reaching campaign I’ve done.
In addition, there are certain things in it that are quite overpowered, such as the 24-str guy with a x4 crit weapon and power attack, whose regular attacks can do 20 damage, with crits doing up to 80.
I think that some of my complaining about player interaction is related to my own getting sick of the current campaign. Because of that, I think that all the things that wouldn’t necessarily bother me on their own are doing so.
I’m not sure what to do about that, but I think it’s something I needed to realise, and need to come to terms with.
Thanks for taking the time here, by the way.
And happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks for the rapid feedback and the clarifications. All good points.
Nice introspection too. The ‘getting tired of the campaign’ is an extremely valid issue that I have met very often.
My best games are almost always 5 room dungeons/ 5 scenes act.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too man! Don’t get eaten by a Half-Dragon Dire-Turkey!
Well about the need to get some work done at home…
In my book, your either doing your work or playing doing both at the same time is not good for either. Unless your in a testing group of D&D 4th edition then your are working as you play, but I digress…
Point is, enforce the no laptop policy, if he needs to do some home work. Ask him to do it before the session and to come join you when he’s free of his responsibility. Depending on when and the length of your session. If he still comes but later because of that take that time to flesh out the story with the other and have the most of the fight when he’s there.
In our group we have a policy if one player is missing we continue, his character just fades out for the session. If two player are missing we play something else.
As for the getting feed up with a campaign part… Well it happens, Let somebody else GM for a while, if its generalized, or scrap the campaign and start a new one.
This is exactly what we did with our Iron hero campaign.
My 2 cents
No laptop policy if your not here to game, don’t be here.
I don’t believe in being at 100% when for every fight having to fight with your strength at 50% is MORE HEROIC, especially if your forced to fight something that you would normally PWN.
If I have a player that moans and complains about abiity damage or energy drain, I hit him with near death from it.
I ask him what the touch of a ghost, shadow, or wraith is supposed to do. You can go old school sword of wounding if you want.
To me that is MMORPG whinny baby stuff. A crippled character is a Roleplaying opportunity and this is a Roleplaying game.
Personally Jake is ruining the game, he is not paying attention and wants everything to be the way he likes it or he is “storming” I have no tolerance for people like this in my game there are to many good players who want to play to put up with that.
I understand your position on this Steve, and I respect your stance on it, although you may be a bit more old school than I am. 🙂
However, I tried to see in the scope of Ve4’s social situation. You can’t go ‘screw you’ with your fiance’s brother who’s been your pal for a many years, it’s harder than that. (Heck, if my buddy had let me date his cute sister, he’d have gotten a billion brownie points).
But Jake does show clear signs of MMORPGism and could gain a few levels in maturity. Ve4 saying he does has homework entails he’s a High Schooler or a young College student. Which explains a few things (while not making them more right).
Finally, while I enjoyed the exercise, I think Ve4 needed to vent more than anything. He seems to have realized that his campaign is just not as fun as before and he focussed his frustration mostly with the issues with Jake.
Hell, I’ve been guilty of that more than once!
“Jake” is actually a computer engineer and a grad student. The “homework” is coming from both grad studies and his actual job.
I’m an undergrad engineering student.
And, actually, I don’t think “MMORPGism” really describes it. MMORPGs often place you in situations where you aren’t at full potential. And I don’t think he’s played an MMORPG in my life.
He’s a single-player CRPG guy. Where you can save and load, and have time between encounters to refresh yourself.
But in any case, thanks to everyone for the opinions. I think the “no laptop” policy will be instituted soon.
Funny how we fill holes of a story with what is convenient… 🙂
Thanks for the exercise Ve4 and sorry for the things we got wrong….
I edited the post to add this:
‘Post-publication clarifications: I ended up getting a few facts wrong (eg: cRPG vs MMORPG) and making erroneous assumptions in the post and the comments (eg: ‘Jake’s’ age). For that I humbly apologize to Ve4grm. However, I think it that, as written, the post remains an interesting case study’
🙂
It sounds to me like Jake is bored in the sessions. Combat gives him something to get his teeth into; otherwise the session just doesn’t interest him. Try ramping up the tension a notch. Have a werewolf stalk them over several unlinked adventures, or a temple collapse around their ears. Have his character infected with a disease which will kill him in 24 hours, or whatever. If he’s a tactician, give him something to think about.
Remember that as GM you’re in charge of the rest stops, not the players. If he wants to rest because he’s lost a few hit points, toss in a “random” encounter (with the aforementioned werewolf, perhaps), or give them a reason to carry on. This works best if it’s the other players who want to carry on – let them nag him to press onward, and you’re not the bad guy.
Suggest that his character take a level of cleric too; that means he’ll be able to heal himself (and others, should he choose) and keep on moving. That will keep the other players happy too.
Another suggestion is to give him abilities when he’s at less than full efficiency. A Ring of Valiant Rage (from my own campaign) is a great thing for a Fighter to own. It grants the Rage ability to the wearer when his Hit Points are reduced to 1/4, and is usable 3/day. Usual fatigue rules apply.
Oh, and I’m with CDM; no laptops at the game table. It’s important that the DM abides by that rule too, in the interests of fair play. If that upsets Jake, too bad. If you’re running a game, you’re running a game, and All Distractions Are Bad. Just as you wouldn’t try to game with the TV going (you wouldn’t, right?), surfing while gaming is just not done.
Hope that helps!
It sounds to me like Jake is bored in the sessions. Combat gives him something to get his teeth into; otherwise the session just doesn’t interest him. Try ramping up the tension a notch. Have a werewolf stalk them over several unlinked adventures, or a temple collapse around their ears. Have his character infected with a disease which will kill him in 24 hours, or whatever. If he’s a tactician, give him something to think about.
The werewolf and temple wouldn’t really work. He’d be half paying attention through them, and that’s about it.
The disease, well, it’s really not my style of play.
Remember that as GM you’re in charge of the rest stops, not the players. If he wants to rest because he’s lost a few hit points, toss in a “random” encounter (with the aforementioned werewolf, perhaps), or give them a reason to carry on. This works best if it’s the other players who want to carry on – let them nag him to press onward, and you’re not the bad guy.
The big time this happened, this is exactly what happened. He suggested hanging back and resting in the undead-infested ruins so they could make it through the rest of the battles. (At this point, they were very much in need of rest, however.) The other players said no, and they instead ran for the open desert, where their caravan was waiting. Avoided the battles, and weren’t sitting where they would most likely get attacked. The other players do very much control this aspect.
Suggest that his character take a level of cleric too; that means he’ll be able to heal himself (and others, should he choose) and keep on moving. That will keep the other players happy too.
Low wisdom. And we have no shortage of healing, anyways. We have two psionic characters who can heal themselves, plus a full cleric with wands, and potions.
Another suggestion is to give him abilities when he’s at less than full efficiency. A Ring of Valiant Rage (from my own campaign) is a great thing for a Fighter to own. It grants the Rage ability to the wearer when his Hit Points are reduced to 1/4, and is usable 3/day. Usual fatigue rules apply.
He’s a barbarian, anyways. But more to the point, he already has an item like that, which boosts his damage when below 1/2 hp. Which raises an interesting situation, where he wants to get down below 1/2 hp in a battle, yet wants to be healed back to full (or close) between each encounter.
His main thing is ability damage, which is more difficult to heal during battles, and imposes actual statistical penalties on his effectiveness. HP damage, to him, only limits how long he can go.
Oh, and I’m with CDM; no laptops at the game table. It’s important that the DM abides by that rule too, in the interests of fair play. If that upsets Jake, too bad. If you’re running a game, you’re running a game, and All Distractions Are Bad. Just as you wouldn’t try to game with the TV going (you wouldn’t, right?), surfing while gaming is just not done.
I occasionally use a laptop for stat blocks, and I don’t mind someone having a laptop at the table, as such. In fact, when I was frequently a player back in the day, I always had my laptop out to reference spells, classes, and to roll massive amounts of dice.
But that laptop never did anything but D&D while I was playing D&D. If he was skimming a spell or ability, or using it to roll dice, I wouldn’t mind. Heck, even if he was surfing the web a bit and still engaged with the game, I wouldn’t mind. But he doesn’t remain attentive, and he ends up playing games like Age of Empires while we’re playing, sometimes.
And that’s where I mind.
So I can’t really say “no laptops, ever”, as that’s somewhat hypocritical. But I can’t let them be a distraction.
I’m trying to figure out how to draw that line…
You could ask for the Wifi connections to be turned off. I use a laptop at the table because my gaming notes are on a Wiki, but I don’t surf unless I need to go to the SRD.
All I can say Ve4 is that this story has sparked a lot of interest… 🙂 Hope you find your solution.